Marillion

Tuesday, 23rd October 2012
Euro Building, Caracas, Venezuela

Article And Photos By Guille Palladino

Twenty years ago Marillion came to Venezuela by the first time, the “Holidays in Eden Tour” was finishing and simultaneously was starting the
“Six Of One and Half Dozen of the Other Tour” (Better known as A Singles Collection in USA).
In that time the band performed two shows on September 30 and October 01, 1992 at Poliedro de Caracas in front of more than 10.000 fans each night.
The recording of both nights was released through Racket Records entitled Live in Caracas due to the demand and the high quality of that bootleg.

On 2012, Marillion came to Venezuela in two separate opportunities, the fist one on April 13 for the ending of the PGA Golf Tour in Venezuela,
and made an exclusive show that night. The second time they went back on October during the "Sounds that can’t be made South American Tour”
and this is what we'll talk about on this review, hoping that all of our Readers enjoy it.

In this time, the show was a huge different, the venue was in the main hall of a local hotel, in front of almost 1200 fans,
with tables and chairs all around the place, looking like the Oscar ceremony or something like that, a big fail from the promoter.
The stage wasn’t at the right height and there were innkeepers serving Scotch, and snacks!!! Despite of that the concert was awesome,
very emotional, the band looked like they enjoyed the show a lot, they felt surprised by the audience singing almost every song,
and they shared with the Fans before and after it (The band always declared that sharing with the fans is a very important issue for them) So,
it was funny grab a beer with them.

The opening act was a local Pop band called Entre Nos ("Between Us"), offered us a no longer than 40 minutes performance and played songs
from his third album called Once Cero Tres (1103). A charismatic singer with a powerful voice and
a experienced playing by their members gives us an interesting warming up for Marillion, not another remarkable thing to mention.

After that, Marillion jumped on the stage and started the show with the same song than 20 years ago, the explosive Splintering Heart
was the perfect song to make all the audience pull up of their chairs, followed by Cover my Eyes one of their most famous songs in Venezuela,
I could see everybody singing and going nuts with this one. The first surprise of the night for me was Slainthe Mhath one of my favorites songs from the F era,
never imagined that I could hear it again. The show slowed a bit when Beautiful was performed,
many romantic couples looking each other and, why not?, many furtive kissing :)

Power and Fantastic Place made the atmosphere more quiet and slowed the audience excessive momentary enthusiasm but paying attention to the band and singing them instead.
Now the show warmed up with King and Sounds that can't be Made two very strong tracks, that made the people stayed off their chairs again.

At this moment, H made an announcement, because a couple of days before, the original Kay (and one of the Fish's inspirations on the writing of this song) passed away.
And Steve Rothery started with perhaps the most famous accords composed by the band: Kayleigh...
A curious situation happened when at the solo the guitar's sound gone away,
and after a few seconds with the band looping the rhythm Rothery started it again since the beggining, perhaps it was Kayleigh's spirit joking around? :)
after that Lavender blew up all of us, and we forgot the chairs and the Scotch.
It was the perfect interlude for the final songs of the show The Great Escape and Neverland, H cried, I cried, many people cried, too emotional, magical moment.

The Invisible Man started and all of us could recover after the previous songs with a more theatrical performance made by H.
The last romantic moment of the night were No-One Can and Easter, choruses, laughs, and the audience "burnin' out the Hall" :)
But the great great finale went when Mark Kelly started to play the accords of Garden Party,
I died in that moment, was the perfect ending for a very particular gig in Caracas.
Awesome show, awesome performance, awesome music, awesome audience.

Surprisely for me was the fact that the band could perform so many songs from the F era, and so few songs from his latest release.
Obviously they thought that their last album couldn't be so known here, but it weren't ;).
The more satisfactory thing for me was to know from them personally that they never thought this show was gonna be as amazing as it were.

Setlist

Splintering Heart
Cover My Eyes
Slainthe Mhath
Beautiful
Power
Fantastic Place
King
Sounds That Can't Be Made
Kayleigh
Lavender
The Great Escape
Neverland